Wildcard is a tougher road to get in and much tougher path once you’re in. And fighting for a division title/wildcard spot down the stretch takes a lot out of your team I think that gets overlooked a bit. Look at what’s going on already mahomes is taking an obscene amount of hits. They almost always have a bye and/ or just coast down the stretch but now they’ll pretty likely be playing playoff-style football for an extra month with no bye the first round of the playoffs
I think 7 teams have won the Super Bowl as a wildcard in like 45+ years and two involving tom Brady were pretty much flukes 😂 that Bucs team was disgustingly stacked but it took Brady a bit of time to adjust to his new team so they probably should’ve been a division winner and I still have no flippin idea how the giants beat the pats in that 08 Super Bowl lol.
the big thing for me and I’ve heard mahomes say it himself…he saves a lot of these big scrambling plays for the playoffs typically but this year he’s goin all out early to carry the offense and it’s still been a struggle so far
im not trying to say they’re done at all haha I just think they’re not as superhuman as people think either. They did win a few road playoff games a few years ago but they were the 3 seed and rested guys down the stretch it wasn’t like they were the 6-7 seeds or something. that seems to be how people talk about it haha